POLAR Vantage V

7 Reviews for POLAR Vantage V

1. 

   Rated 2 out of 5

   Alexey – November 5, 2018

   UPDATE: After 2 months of extensive use, I’m incredibly disappointed with the Polar Vantage V. I can no longer recommend this device for two reasons.1) Inaccurate heart rate tracking – the heart rate is incredibly inconsistent both while exercising and while stationary. I experimented extensively with strap tightness (tight vs. loose), contact surface (hairy vs. skin, wet vs. dry), activity levels (moving vs. standing), etc. and unfortunately the heart rate was often wildly inaccurate. Even my cheap-o optical sensors did a much better job of tracking.2) Unhelpful customer support – After mentioning the heart rate tracking issues, Polar support gave me the same generic runaround that another reviewer here got. I got no sense that they’re aware of the problem or intend to fix it. Unfortunately a company is only as good as its support, so don’t expect much here.Perhaps these issues will be fixed in a future firmware update, but at this point I cannot recommend this product to anybody who’s serious about fitness.ORIGINAL REVIEW:As an avid runner and an even bigger gadget/data geek, I was excited as soon as I saw the Polar Vantage V (what’s better than 3 LEDs? 9 LEDs!). I’ve been using the same running watch for years and I have played around with countless other trackers with various levels of success. Overall the Vantage V left me reasonably impressed. From a training and accuracy side, I have been unable to find a good rival on the market.Pros:- Heart rate is surprisingly accurate while running/exercising. I compared against my chest strap side-by-side and the Vantage was typically within 5 bpm. This was the biggest and most pleasant surprise (especially given my reasonably hairy wrists).- Accurate GPS. I was concerned about the GPS from other reviews but I have not had any issues. For what it’s worth, I run in the city next to tall buildings without issues.- Great design. Sleek minimal design ensures you can wear this day-to-day without broadcasting to the world that you run triathlons in your sleep.- Watch and strap feel oddly satisfying on my wrist. The watch feels snug and secure without strangling my wrist.- Touch screen has been very responsive without hiccups.Cons:- Embarrassingly bad sleep tracking. In the age where wrist wearables track up to 4 stages of sleep, the Vantage V only tracks 2 (asleep/awake). Hopefully this is something Polar improves with future software updates.- Lack of customization. No custom watch faces, no custom goals, no third party integrations, no fun settings for people who love gadgets.- Battery life is a bit shorter than expected. I’m getting about 4 days out of the watch with continuous HR monitoring while exercising every 1-2 days.- Heart rate sometimes spikes while I’m resting. My other devices may say 60 bpm but Polar will spike up to 90 bpm for a few minutes. The spikes don’t show up in my daily summary so it might be a software glitch.Overall, I’m very impressed with the design, quality, and performance of the Vantage V. The software could use a few improvements, but luckily this is something Polar seems to be aware of.

2. 

   Rated 4 out of 5

   Bark the Shark – November 17, 2018

    POLAR REVIEW VANTAGE V – November 17, 2018I have been wearing the Vantage V for two weeks straight now, and have used it for a dozen workouts, including running a marathon, strength training (TRX), swimming and continuous daily use.* Note – I am an experienced triathlete (going on 30 years now, including 6 full Ironman races, dozens of 70.3 distance races and 13 NYC Marathons since 1990) and longtime user of Polar products, most recently the V800, M400 and M430 units. I loved the V800 until I was able to leave the strap behind with the M430 and have a V650 permanently mounted on my bike.The Vantage V is immediately intuitive if you’ve used Polar products before, and easy to learn otherwise. Center right button to select/start, up and down buttons to scroll, lower left button to go back or see the main menu, top left button for the light. The touch screen makes the buttons almost superfluous. A single tap on the start button provides your current heart rate. I have found thisSizewise, it’s bigger (46mm diameter, 13mm thick) than earlier Polar HRMs, but nowhere near as big as the giant Garmin’s I have seen.Everyday Use – I wear the Vantage V as my everyday watch. I have gotten complements on it and so far, it has only needed to be recharged once, unlike the Garmin units I have also used, which in my experience ALWAYS needed to be charged when I needed them. Polar HRM battery life in general for me has always been superior to any other HRM or GPS unit. The last Garmin I owned was a 610 – I gave up on them after the frustrations it gave me from horrible battery to random resets and loss of data.In the Box – The Vantage V, charging cable and a Polar H10 Heart Rate Sensor chest strap. Getting started with the watch and pairing it to my iPhone and chest straps has been quick and simple.Software/App – The Polar flow app is an amazing tool for demystifying training. Letting you easily see both your moment to moment data simultaneously displaying it as a graph, as well as letting you separately view both automatic laps (you set the distance or time length) and your own laps from hitting the button.Like the V800, M400 and M430, the Vantage V uploads to automatically to the Polar Flow app, and I have it set up to automatically upload to Training Peaks and Strava. I currently have 9 sports profiles (workout types and associated screens) loaded up and over a hundred to easily choose from and customize using the app.GPS – Since the V800 and through to the Vantage V, I have always found Polar units to be highly accurate, moreso than even the Garmin Forerunner units I have used. A trip from New York to Maine and a couple of runs there let me test out the syncing of the GPS signal far from my home base. No problems encountered.Running – I wore the Vantage V for the NYC marathon last week, and it passed the trail by fire with flying colors. I wore the M430 on the other wrist and glanced at both as I ran. I am including images of the automatic splits and graphs from Polar Flow. It even corrected for signal loss while crossing the lower level of the Queensborough Bridge, which in the past has vexed both Polar and Garmin units.Swimming – for the last year or more, I’ve used the M430 for swim heart rate but had to track my yardage separately. It’s all in one with the Vantage V and, similar to the V800, it knows when I’m doing breast stroke and backstroke (butterfly seems to be too similar to freestyle to tell the difference).The V800 was excellent for this but needed a chest strap to get HR and it would never stay on through a push-off. The Vantage V included the new H10 chest strap, but I have to remember to bring it to the pool (I’ve gotten spoiled by wrist based HR and keep forgetting to pack it in my morning bag).With the Vantage V, I like getting HR feedback immediately and being able to read it clearly even with my goggles on. That’s a big deal for me – can’t easily use reading glasses in the pool.Its also super easy to change the pool distance. My Masters team workouts alternate between short course years (25y), short course meters (25m) and long course (50 m). Pool length comes up as an option when you scroll to the swim profile and you can set a custom distance as well.Fitness Tracking – Using the Vantage V for both workouts and everyday use, Polar Flow tracks steps, total distance, active time, calories burned and shows them to you on the Vantage as well as in Polar Flow.Running Power – I haven’t used this before and I will be monitoring it for a future update to this review.Training Load Pro, Recovery Pro – acts like a coach to give you feedback on your training load and recover. Since I used the Vantage V for a marathon after two days of taper, it told me I was overtraining, and it gave me messages that I am detraining over the next few days during my recovery. Two weeks in, it is learning from my workout patters and frequency – today the screen displays that I am “Productive – training progressively which should improve my fitness level”.Sleep Tracker – How it knows, I don’t know, but it knows when I am sleeping, it knows when I’m awake, it knows when I am restless and rates my sleep (for goodness sake). In the last decade, I came to realize that tracking my sleep has had a direct positive affect on my overall health.Colors – I got the White band but it also comes in black and Orange.Chest Strap – I haven’t used the included H10 chest strap for swimming yet, but the strap seems like it might survive a fast lane push-off without ending up around my ankles. Stay tuned on that front. The chest strap is needed for the orthostatic test. In the coming days will try it out on a run as well and compare it with the M430 and post an update.Pros- Heart Rate Accuracy – Chest strap not required! Wrist based sensors in general do not seem to be as immediately accurate as the chest straps (optical in the wrist, electrical impulses detected by the chest strap), but its close enough that I have no desire to go back to the chest strap except for the Orthostatic Test but I am only just starting to use the included H10 chest strap.- GPS Accuracy – As good as any Polar and better than Garmin in my experience.- Battery Life. I ran a marathon last week and it was still going on the original charge a week later with several workouts and other functions. I only recharged it because I was going out of state for a long weekend.- Easy to read. I don’t need my reading glasses to see the screen. The larger face and control of the screens (using the Polar Flow app) allows me to customize the view but I can still easily see the numbers at night with the light activated as well as through my goggles when swimming. The first update made the screen even brighter and easier to read.- On screen indication of training zones. I love this feature – the customizable heart and power zones are displayed in color as both an analog scale along the top and on the HR or power reading itself. I LOVE this feature.- Easy to sync and update. All setup and updates can be done through the Polar Flow app. No need to plug It into a computer.- Comfort – the band and watch are not overly big and awkward. I doesn’t sit too high on my wrist and this is a key feature for me as I’m a bit of a klutz but haven’t smacked the Vantage into any walls or tables yet after more than a week on continuous use.Cons- A chest strap is needed for Orthostatic test. Whatever telemetry the chest strap provides can’t be provided by the optical sensor. The test works with the H7 chest strap as well.- It’s not complete yet. No show stoppers for me but some folks are not pleased that its incomplete. Firmware updates have been announced (according to Polar):o Update 1 – November 8, 2018 – Bug fixes, brighter backlight (installed)o Update 2 – December 2018 – (Polar Vantage V&M) – Stopwatch, countdown timer and interval timer: Enhancements for existing features.o Update 3 – “Early 2019” – Smart notifications, Route Guidance, Waypoint navigation for downloaded routes: Discover new routes from other users in Polar Flow and third-party services, Enhancements for existing features.o “Future Updates”: Strava Live Segments, Fitness Test, Enhancements to existing features. Other features to be confirmed.-Overall Review – I love it, it’s a winner! The battery life, ease of use and large screen make it esthetically pleasing and the functions it currently has will carry me through the off-season and unto the late Winter/Early Spring when I ramp up my training. The only reason it’s not a five star review is the delay in fully realizing all the functions I have come to use and enjoy in the M430 and V800, all of which are coming in the future updates.

3. 

   Rated 2 out of 5

   Write Good Reviews – November 28, 2018

   The software for this watch is not completed. There are many missing features such as screen brightness and display time on to name 2 of many. I am disappointed.I have worn a V800 for years and I loved that watch – still have it actually.The quality is better than the Garmin Fenix which I now own because I can adjust things such as screen brightness. Polar makes great products, but even after 4 years of the V800, they have not had enough time to build the software… that is just unacceptable and a stupid move by Polar. It seems like the last thing that Polar wants is to sell a lot of their products.

4. 

   Rated 3 out of 5

   Gadget – December 2, 2018

   The good:Looks very professional and high qualityWrist band feels amazingInformation is very detailed on the trainings you doBattery life seems amazing about 6 days worth, 4 definitely possible, depending on how much you use its training trackingThe badFor $500 you are getting an incomplete watch to beta test.There are no notifications, no music storage, no way to connect any other Bluetooth through the watch.The screen is visible during day without problems, but as it gets darker, you need to reflect light off of it to see anything on the screen or use the poorly made backlight button.It’s really disappointing that they didn’t improve upon m600, instead decided to do their own thing.While sure most software updates will come later, but we don’t know when for sure and by that time you’ll probably be able to get this watch at a lower price.Just disappointing that they don’t care of early purchase customers.I snowboard and you have to pause and start the tracking before you get on the lift and get off. An Android watch usually gets this automatically, without even needing to select the sport.

5. 

   Rated 2 out of 5

   Peter Kappel – April 1, 2019

   It is really hard for me to give this watch such a bad rating.I have been a long user of Polar products and really love the service they provide and their past products, in particular, the Polar V800 which is very accurate.I guess I start with the good things: it is a light watch, looks great and has a long battery life.This is unfortunately where it ends.The biggest problem with the long battery life is, that Polar has changed their GPS chip to a Sony one, which is known to be less reliable. Further, due to the flatter design of the watch, they need to use a different GPS antenna or have changed the location of the antenna.Both of the above design changes have unfortunately very grave consequences: the GPS data is completely unreliable, particularly when you run within a city, nearby trees or leave alone in the forest. (Most marathon races are unfortunately right in the middle of big cities…)This bad GPS data starts a chain reaction: pace data is wrong, distance is unreliable, speed, navigation, running index, recovery- name it and it depends on accurate GPS data.Now before you say- use a footpod or Stryd: automatic calibration for foot pods is set to on and for the time being you cannot turn this off! This means your accurate foot pod will be calibrated by an unreliable GPS chip…Needless to say- all of the above makes this watch not a tool for somebody who is seriously in training.I wanted a watch that helps me with my marathon training (I am a Boston qualifier, so I take training rather seriously!). The Polar Vantage V cannot, in my opinion, be used for serious training.I have tested this watch by using the Polar V800, which is known for excellent GPS data, on the other arm. The Polar V gave me wildly inconsistent data, usually 20 seconds per minute slower pace than the V800.In a race, this would be a catastrophe, particularly during a marathon. You would speed up and run at a real pace of 5:10 while the watch tells you 5:30…you will hit the wall.At least if Polar would allow you to turn auto-calibration for foot pods off, the problems could be solved, but according to Polar this is not on their immediate to-do-list.I was glad that I had bought this watch via Amazon. After three weeks of trying everything and anything to make it work, I decided to return the watch.

6. 

   Rated 2 out of 5

   AWalker – June 29, 2019

   I have been using Polar watches for around 25 years and this is my fourth (immediately previous was the M400). The Vantage V is head and shoulders above the earlier versions and while keeping the Polar navigation system the Vantage V now encompasses the latest tech from touch screen (when not exercising) to wrist heart rate monitoring. I was a little sceptical about the latter as I was pleased with the H10 chest stap however the wrist monitoring has not dropped out once on any of my trail runs. I am still working my way through the new information the Vantage V provides such as the power outputs (Watts), strain, tolerance and built in maps but I for me I can never get enough data. I find the Vantage is more comfortable to wear than the M400 because it feels less bulky and the stap is softer and shorter. Some more subtle improvements over the M400 are the use of colour displays when you are exercising, the high resolution screen, and a tiny thing … the lug on the stap loop that keeps the excess strap firmly in place. Battery life is good and I was surprised that with all the new tech the Vantage’s battery run-down after a three hour session was less than the M400. The Vanatge also picks up satellites much faster than the M400 (and now vibrates when it is locked on) and syncs data to Polar Flow much more quickly. The new charge pad takes a little while to get used to but I like that it is magnetic. I bought my Vanatge V from Amazon for AUD$491 which made it a “must have”. My old M400 also survives. I replaced the band and passed it to my eldest … who likes the retro look of it.

7. 

   Rated 2 out of 5

   Ryan – December 19, 2019

   I’ve had my Vantage V for about 3 months now and have been using it for triathlon training. Before this watch I was using an Apple Watch series 4 which didn’t work well. The Apple Watch would be so inconsistent with this heart rate monitoring and when I tried to pair with a Tickr heart rate strap, it would rarely work, plus the was never an app out there that tracked everything I needed.Then came along the Vantage V, it does everything I need, reliably. Sure, I had some troubles with pairing the Polar H10 to the watch and my Tacx smart trainer, but I have that sorted out now.- Easy to navigate screens- Easy to set up- Touch screen is “ok”, but could be the screen protector I have on that reduces response time- Uploads to Training Peaks easily- Great sleep tracking-Cardio load status works great at keeping my training on track and keeping me accountable.- It gives me all the metrics I need- Heart rate monitoring in the water is lacking, but using the H10 straps resolves that.Sure, Garmin might have more tracking options, but I personally feel most of it is unnecessary and gimmicky. Polar has what you need and they are constantly updating so more features will surely come in the future.As for aesthetics, the watch is gorgeous and the stainless steel case is solid and scratch resistant. Buttons are firm and with consistent feedback, always providing a solid and consistent click. The strap has a light texture to it with for myself with hairy arms means no pulled arm hairs, that was something the Apple Watch always did poorly. It is lightweight, comparable weight to the Apple Watch 44mm, although slightly thicker. It is comfortable enough to wear at night.Battery lasts 5-7 days and takes about 2hrs to charge, such a pleasant change from having to charge an Apple Watch every 24-36hrs.The Polar H10 strap is great, compared to the Tickr strap I bought then returned, the H10 is much better.Overall, the Polar Vantage V is a fabulous watch that is solid, reliable and good looking. It tracks your workout easily without and silly gimmicks. What I would like Polar to change is make the screen bigger and the vibrating alarm more forceful so that it wakes me up more consistently. I’ll give the Apple Watch credit for that, their vibrating alarm was fantastic.